The Gatewood Prize

The Gatewood Prize is Switchback Books' annual competition for a first or second full-length (48–80 pp.) collection of poems by a woman writing in the English language. It is named after Emma Gatewood, the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.

2014 Judge: Dorothea Lasky

Reading Period: March 15–May 15, 2014

Dorothea Lasky is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: Thunderbird, Black Life, and AWE, all out from Wave Books. She has also written several chapbooks, including Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). Her writing has appeared in POETRY, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and Boston Review, among other places.

General Terms:

Poet must be a woman; our definition of "woman" is broad and includes transgender and all other female-identified individuals.

Multiple submissions are acceptable, but each manuscript must be entered under separate cover and fee.

You must let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted by another publisher while under our consideration.

No revisions to submitted manuscripts will be considered; the winning manuscript may be revised before publication.

Translations ineligible.

Manuscripts by close friends and former students of the judge are ineligible. If the judge would recognize your manuscript for any reason, please wait until next year to enter the contest.

Individual poems from the manuscript may have been published previously in magazines, chapbooks of less than 48 pages, or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.

Manuscripts remain anonymous until a winner is selected. Please remove any identifying references from your manuscript (including those in the body of the manuscript).

Only include cover letters in the appropriate box in the online form; do not upload a cover letter as the first page of your manuscript.

Switchback editors and staff members will read all submissions. We will select ten manuscripts to send on to the judge, who will choose the final winner.

Entries that do not meet these terms may be disqualified. Please email Managing Editor Colleen O'Connor at colleen@switchbackbooks.com with any questions.

Manuscript Requirements:

Manuscripts should be between 48 and 80 pages, paginated.

Please include a cover page with ONLY the title of the manuscript.

Please include a list of acknowledgments in the cover letter box on the Submittable form. Do not include your acknowledgments in the manuscript document.

Table of contents recommended.

Notification:

You will be notified of your submission status via email. Winners and finalists will be announced on our blog and website in the fall.

Entry Fee:

Option 1: $20 for reading fee only

Option 2: $28 for reading fee and a book of your choice from our catalog (excluding limited edition FOUR). Please specify which book you would like to receive in the cover letter on the Submittable form; if you do not specify, we will send you a book of our choosing. To ensure a timely delivery, be sure that your mailing address is up-to-date in the Submittable system.

All payments will be accepted via Submittable. We do not accept cash, checks, or money orders.

Submission Form:

Deadline:

Manuscripts will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. on May 15, 2014.

We recommend that you familiarize yourself with our aesthetics before submitting a manuscript to our contest. You can do this by reading sample poems on our website, or checking out the work of previous contest winners and finalists: